Shall We All Carry ID Cards?

We've all heard about the Arizona hardline against civil liberties and its new law that can't be carried out without the cops profiling ppl who look Mexican.

Well, now the Republicans in some states, including Florida are clamoring over this very ill-conceived law for their polictal posturing. When I read of this last Friday, I just poured out this essay of my thoughts on it. How they will assess who looks like an alien, legal or otherwise in South Florida is one of the details that none of them have yet discussed.

Here are my thoughts on this:

May 15, 2010
Musings of a Civil Libertarian
by Shale Stone

I agree that we must do something to curtail the open borders where illegal immigrants from Mexico are invading our nation. This is a federal government problem that has not been sufficiently addressed and it is negatively affecting border states like Arizona. I disagree that a state can usurp an area of the federal government with its own immigration laws and this is just one reason the Arizona law is going to court to determine its legality.

So far this fiasco was just Arizona's. Now it is reported that Republican candidates in Florida are supporting this attack on all our civil rights in a knee-jerk effort to garner the votes of their reactionary members in the primaries.

Of course I wasn't going to vote for any of those candidates anyway, but the fear is that one of them may win the big election in this mostly Republican state, which has a history of mean-spirited Christian dominated laws.

One of those candidates who just came out in support of the latest assault on civil liberties is Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum who is running for governor. That is to keep him in competition with his opponent Republican Rick Scott, who also backs the Arizona law.

Now McCollum already has a history of bringing fundamentalist religious beliefs into his office as Attorney General when he paid Baptist minister "Dr." George Rekers, $60, 900 of our money in 2008 to testify why homosexuals are unfit to adopt children. It was wasted money as Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman realized the obvious, that "Dr. Rekers' beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science ... the court cannot consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy."

That alone should be reason enuf not to vote for McCollum for any elected office - but unfortunately he will likely make it in this backwater state that agrees with his fundamentalist views on homosexuals. (Never mind that his key witness was recently outed as being a hypocrite by hiring a gay rentboy to accompany him on a European trip. I'm jealous of course - wish I could do something like that but I only make $30K a year, not $61K just for telling biased opinions to a Florida court.)

However, McCullum is just one of the many Republican candidates supporting the hardline immigration law that would authorize local police to stop "suspicious" people and demand that they prove that they are U.S. Citizens or in the country legally. Of course I will be supporting the Democratic candidate for governor, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who opposes the law.

But this bandwagon hardline against illegal immigrants that will have civil rights implications for all of us is not limited to the borders of Florida. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio supports the Arizona law. He is running against former Republican and now Independent Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek who do not support it.

Why should I care? I am not particularly Hispanic looking (tho I have a swarthy skin color because I am a South Florida sunbather). Even obvious Hispanics like Marco Rubio will not be stopped on the street, just too many people of Hispanic origin here in South Florida to even consider the logistics of that.

No, the cops will stop those suspicious looking people with ample "indio" facial features. You know the look so common among Mexicans and other Centro Americans. Of course that is not "profiling," which has gotten a bad rep from its abuse of black Americans over the years. And, we are all at risk of being stopped.

I have been profiled and stopped by cops before and as anyone from a fascist nation can tell you, even if that is all they do and cut you loose, it is still degrading and infuriating. New Orleans cops thought they had good reason to stop me in my neighborhood in the early '70s and have me empty my pockets when I had shoulder length hair. Obvious that I was carrying drugs. (No, I am not stupid). I was stopped once while walking with a black friend - guess that looked suspicious. In fact, in San Francisco I was even arrested on suspicion. Spent three-hours in jail before they determined I had done nothing wrong.

So, before jumping onto this knee-jerk solution to getting rid of illegal aliens, perhaps everyone should consider how will you prove that you are a U.S. Citizen if you do get stopped. Will a Florida Drivers license suffice? Will you have to carry envelopes of legal papers or a birth certificate? I have a U.S. Passport, but I'd rather not carry it all the time in my cut-off shorts, my usual attire in this muggy South Florida heat.

In fact, when I go for my mile or so run in the evenings in my neighborhood of North Beach, I don't carry anything except an embossed card with my name and address in case I become the latest victim of a hit and run driver. I was always assured that we in America were not required to carry our "papers," as seen in so many WWII movies of Nazi Germany.

 

I thought that carrying ids was a law anyway?
I think that everyone should carry an for identification reasons but not for that new stupid ass law.
I personally think that law is stupid.. It is so racist.
I think if they are going to start deporting people then they better start checking everyone of every race.

 

No one should be forced to carry an ID, and has far as I know district courts have actually upheld this in court, which raises the constitutional questions of this bill aside from the race issue.

 

law or not, carry ID and avoid being hassled

 

My only piece of ID is my health card.

Don't drive so I don't have a drivers license.
Don't travel so I don't have a passport.
Province I live in doesn't have a Provincial ID.

It can become a pain because I still look fairly young, so if I ever buy lottery tickets or alcohol some people still ID me, and aren't too sure if a health card is acceptable ID. Also I have to use a family members account if I want to rent a movie(s) because I don't have sufficient enough ID.

 

It also helps to say "Yassah Boss" to avoid being hassled when stopped on suspicion.

 

What everyone seems to be missing is that the Arizona Law is verbatim the Federal Law with the necessary language necessary for it to be used in Arizona. In order for this law to kick in you must have been stopped by law enforcement for breaking another law, thereby allowing the officer to observe the situation and make on site conclusions based on observations at the time of the stop.

It should also be reinforced here that if a person is here illegally, they have already broken US law. These illegals should be returned, along with their families back to their country of origin. Then they should be put at the back of the line and told wait your turn.

For every illegal here there are 2 or 3 that have been denied legal entrance because of the illegals activity.

 

Ah, yes! The old "Did you know your left tail light was out?" or "You failed to give a turn signal before changing lanes." We've already been there. It's called "Driving While Black." Great crime deterent that one.

 

I predicted when Nixon was president, that one day we all would have to show "papers" at state,county and national borders. I still think it may come to pass. Things only seem to get worse and not better in this country and I've seen them become so.

 

There's no way to implement this AZ law, or any derivative, in a way I'm going to agree with. People shouldn't be required to carry around their papers everywhere they go and police shouldn't be picking people based on how they look. The way to limit illegal immigration is to deny, as much as possible, their ability to prosper. Require people to prove their citizenship when they get a job, register for school, get a driver's license, marriage license, or receive about any other government service. Make the punishment so harsh against employers they won't hire illegals.

 

treat officers with respect and you usually get that back.

You are welcome to come on down without your ID and start mouthing off about Uncle Tom all you like, but the basic fact is that when you get stopped for whatever reason you have to show ID. If you dont carry one because you are so gung ho about the law, thats fine but you cant cry about how long it takes for due process if you choose that route.

I totally advocate carrying ID for the simple fact that I have nothing to hide and prefer to avoid the wait and bullshit of not handing over basic info. It doesnt get you out of anything to not provide ID, in fact it marks you as a troublemaker if you start griping about it.

I dont know where you live, but where i am - the cops are the good guys. I like that they got my stolen car back, drove the druggies and gangsters from the neighborhood and actually come when I call em. When I see a cop, they are happy to see me and i am happy to see them - if its any other way than one of you is doing something you shouldnt be!

 

Cops are the bad guys here.

Where?

Small suburban town of just under 14,000 people where our 27 cops have nothing better to do. The police blotter is posted every week, near every arrest is someone between 18-26 for having weed.

 

The Arizona Law is the Federal Law. A law that the Obama administration is unwilling to enforce. It is a fundamental right of sovereign states to protect their borders. Since Arizona is a state, they have a right to protect the state. If we don't start enforcing laws somewhere in this country it won't matter what the color of our skin is, we will all be profiled as enemies of the state if we don't have papers. It is time to enforce the law.
The only people that have to worry right now are those and their families who are here illegally. If they don't want to be stopped the solution is simple, go home and take your families with you, no one will stop you if you are going back to your country of origin. It is just that simple.

 

America is so dependent on illegal immigrant labor and causes so many of the problems in Mexico I find it funny when people tell them to go home.

 

You misspelled "sometimes."

I live on Miami Beach, supposedly a large metropolitan area with tolerance for differences.

The most recent "good" thing the MBPD did was beat up a gay man that they didn't like. But, a bystander saw the beatdown and called 911. He was talking with the dispatcher when the two cops saw him. They came over and loudly berated him for watching and arrested him for "doing something" he didn't do. It would have gone down with their word - but wait, it was all caught on the 911 tape.

How many of those ppl "doing something they shouldn't be" might have been just as innocent as this bystander and falsely accused?

No, I have a long history with bad cops, even when I was one. Let's say I now profile cops and fear them for what they may do to me, unprovoked just like that bystander. May not be equitable for the few good ones, but it is something I have learned over the years.

 

I have not met any good cops in a long time, and it makes me very sad.

 

I don't see the correlation here with the OP article. Dealing with illegal aliens should not require EVERYONE being stopped at checkpoints to have their papers scrutinized. You missed my allusion to Nazi occupied nations?

That may be true, but my whole point was the loss of civil liberties of ALL of us who will be subject to totalitarian stops.

I am legal - I have always been legal when I was profiled for some reason or another by the cops paranoia and stopped and searched. I resent it each time. Ppl of color resent it even more because it happens more often and obviously for the reason of their race.

My whole point was how are they to enforce this law without profiling and checking ppl who look "Mexican."

 

this reminds me of the time right after 9/11 that my dad got on a plane, and was searched randomly bc he looked somewhat muslim, which he isnt he is jewish but bc he has darker skin and had an beard, they just assumed he was muslim. Profiling to me is just wrong and I have no idea how they can have grounds to search every person that looks like an hispanic descent just to figure out if they are legal or not seems a bit ridiculous to me.

 

I disagree. At least with the first part. There's not more jobs than people. If there were less illegal immigrants then the jobs they fill would have to pay the wages necessary to get Americans to work for them. That, by itself, would raise the prices of some goods and services, which would be a negative. The next step should be to reform unemployment is a way that requires people to get a job, even one they may feel is below them, to continue to get an income which would save us all some money. That would making more money available to pay the higher prices for those good and services.

As to the US causing many of the problems in Mexico, I don't know enough to really say. Millions of productive people leaving their country can't be helping things though.

 

Wish more people understood this. It's a broad brush to paint with, but until more good cops actually speak up about the abuses and coverups that occur, I think it's fair.